Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has lived up to his promise by giving two of his top three City Hall jobs to women. He finally appointed his deputy mayors for policing and transport who between them control multi-billion pound budgets and hold huge power.
Sophie Linden, deputy mayor of Hackney Council and a former adviser to David Blunkett at the Home Office, will oversee the Metropolitan Police.
Val Shawcross, an experienced City Hall operator who sat on the London Assembly for 16 years, will be his number two on transport and deputy chair of Transport for London.
Former Labour transport secretary Andrew Adonis will chair the board of Crossrail 2, responsible for delivering the crucial North-South rail link, and act as a link man to Government.
The third major City Hall deputy mayoralty - housing – will be looked after by Islington Labour councillor James Murray, according to Evening Standard.
Mr Khan has already announced his statutory deputy is long-standing Assembly member Joanne McCartney, which results to three of his four deputies are women.
The new Mayor has taken two weeks to announce his first tranche of big jobs but insiders said the delay was because he was keen to get them right.
Khan has also promised that the Night Tube will start from August, which will alllow London join cities like Berlin and New York. However, it has been noted that the RMT union members have voted to back a walkout of maintenance and engineering staff in a row over pay and working conditions. The union claims Transport for London has refused to discuss outstanding pensions issues until after the launch of the 24-hour service in August, though the dates of the strike are not yet confirmed.
